


The Year of Haruno Sakura

by jonahcomplex



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-07-18 01:51:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16108295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonahcomplex/pseuds/jonahcomplex
Summary: With Naruto and Sasuke gone to hunt down Konoha's enemies and Kakashi recovering, Sakura steps up and becomes the Seventh Hokage. This is the year of her reign.





	1. 四月 (April) – Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> just a random thing i typed in my phone during work. will update sporadically

“You want me to WHAT?”

Kakashi winces from behind his mask. Sakura’s voice got extra piercing and shrill whenever she was stressed, and today is no exception. 

He doesn’t begrudge her for her outburst, not at all. Naruto suddenly leaving with Sasuke to hunt down the remnants of Kaguya’s influence wasn’t anything that anyone expected, and while Sakura and Kakashi accepted his reasons for leaving, it did leave behind a hole as to who would hold the position of Hokage while Kakashi recuperated from constant chakra exhaustion. Tsunade had casually suggested Sakura, to which the Clan Heads and the Village Elders agreed.

“You heard him, Sakura.” Tsunade’s standing behind Kakashi, face smug. “We’re passing the hat to you.”

“But I don’t want to be Hokage…” Sakura protests weakly, running her hands through her bobbed pink hair. Has it gotten longer? The last time Kakashi got more than a glance at his former student, it was somewhere just above her jaw. Now her pink locks frame her face delicately, very slightly curling at the ends.

As Kakashi glances at her, he can’t help but think that Sakura’s come a long way from her genin days––though her heart was still there, long gone was the weak twelve-year-old kunoichi of Team Seven who fawned over Sasuke and doubted her own abilities. Now, ten years later, she’s twenty-two, one of the strongest active jōnin in the village, a battle-hardened war veteran, and Senju Tsunade’s equal, if not greater, in medical ninjutsu. 

Serving as the assistant director for Konoha General was a post that Sakura volunteered to take immediately after the war, and though she was just shy of nineteen, she flourished in her position. Whenever Kakashi and Sakura would meet each other outside of the Admin Building and Hokage Tower, he’d notice that there were a good deal of civilians and shinobi alike who would greet his student in the streets. Kakashi couldn’t help but feel proud of just how far she’s come, even if he wasn’t really responsible for most of the changes that contributed to her growth…

Kakashi blinks, and focuses at the matter at hand. “You’re the most qualified to run the village. We wouldn’t have asked you if we hadn’t exhausted all other options, since you have your hands full at the hospital.” He looks her in the eye. “Believe me. We’ve thought about this.”

Sakura flails around for a moment, before slamming a fist down on his table and pointing at Shikamaru, who’s standing at the side. Upon seeing the finger pointed at him, he blanches. “What about Shikamaru? Are you kidding? He’s qualified! He’s smarter than me!”

“I’m good at tactical planning, not doing administrative work. Paperwork is a drag,” Shikamaru says, folding his arms. “Being Hokage is mostly paperwork, and you’re good at it.” He pauses. “You’re also much, much stronger than me. That’s a plus.”

“A very big plus,” Tsunade continues. “In the absence of Naruto, you’re the next strongest ninja of your generation in this village, thank the gods. Rightly so, considering who trained you. Don’t sell yourself short, Sakura.” Tsunade’s voice turns serious all of a sudden, and Sakura shrinks very slightly. “You’re intelligent, capable, strong, and compassionate. You also love Konoha. Why shouldn’t you be Hokage? Give me a good reason and I’ll look for someone else.”

“I… Neji should have been Hokage,” Sakura murmurs, and looks away.

A sobering silence envelops the room for a while. The prodigious Hyūga’s untimely passing was a dark moment from the war: Hinata and Hanabi were utterly distraught at the death of their beloved cousin, who was expected to take over the Jōnin Commander’s position had Shikamaru not been poised to succeed his father. It was truly unfortunate, Kakashi thinks sadly. Hyūga Neji would have been a good Hokage.

Elder Homura speaks up. “Haruno-san. Both Utatane and I agree with the Fifth and Sixth. We’ve actually discussed this with the Clan Heads a week beforehand, and their agreement was unanimous. The position is yours.”

Sakura gapes. “You all talked about this behind my back?” She sighs. “I bet you guys even asked Naruto, too.”

“It was his request, actually,” Kakashi says, pulling out the very slightly wrinkled scroll from the inside of his Hokage cloak. He passes it on to Sakura. “This was a scroll he sent to me and Tsunade-sama two weeks ago. He wanted you to be Hokage while he and Sasuke are off Zetsu-hunting.”

“Goddamnit, Naruto…” Sakura mutters as she reads the contents of the scroll. “Are you sure there’s really no one else? Kakashi, are you sure you can’t hang on to the hat a little longer?” Her voice is pleading, and she looks up to look him woefully in the eyes. “This is too much responsibility. I’m younger than the Fourth was.”

“I’m sorry,” Kakashi tells her gently. “I may be capable but I’m not as strong as I used to be, now that I’m back to having two regular eyes. Not even your chakra bracelets can speed up the recovery process for my pathways. I need a year. You said so yourself.

“Sakura, I trust you with my life. I trust you with this village just as much. Take care of Konoha. She needs you.” His voice is steady. “You are the best option we have.” 

Kakashi is telling the whole truth. There really isn’t anyone else he’d rather have succeeding him besides Naruto. Ino’s not nearly strong enough, and though she’s got a sharp mind she’s better off managing T&I. Hinata, though much stronger and outspoken now, is not firm enough for the difficult decisions that the Hokage position entails. 

Sakura’s not as smart as Shikamaru is, but she’s still got a brilliant mind, her work at the hospital proves she’s practical and efficient, and the Strength of a Hundred Seal on her forehead is proof that she has the power to protect Konoha with her life. She’s kind and she’s compassionate, and well-known and admired throughout the village. She’ll be perfect.

Sakura wavers, and after a while, concedes. “I… Alright. Alright, okay. I’ll do it. But this is only for a year.”

“Great!” Tsunade crows. “Come on, Sakura, it’s time to get to fitting your cloak. Your ceremony is on Friday.” She claps her hands and walks to the door, dragging her apprentice behind her.

“Two days from now?! I have to sort things out with the hospital first! Does it have to be Friday?”

“Yes,” Kakashi pipes up cheerily, his eye crinkling. “Just in time for the Kage Summit in two weeks. We’ll send the paperwork over to your house later, but you’ve got to visit the tailor for the new set of robes you’ll be wearing.”

“What have I gotten myself into?"


	2. 四月 (April) – Part 2

The Dancing Fan is open by the time Sakura gets back from both the tailor and the hospital, the latter of which she went back to in order to finish the paperwork for three patients. Release forms were tedious and had to be accomplished in triplicate, so the sky was long dark by the time she opened the bar door. The bar was one most frequented by shinobi, and Sakura absentmindedly ducks when a spray of senbon flies its way towards her. She moves her way past a few people who say hello when she sees Team 8 and Team 10 along with Rock Lee and Tenten. They’re chatting very loudly, and greet her when she slumps into a chair. Shikamaru eyes her warily as she face-plants into the table.

“Hey, Forehead! Took you long enough,” Ino chirps, patting her head. “Long day at work?” When Sakura looks up, the first thing she sees is Ino’s bottle of beer, already glistening like it’s been there a while.

“I hate you,” she mumbles. “This is your fault. Gods. This was never my dream. Why’d it have to be me?” Her voice is muffled by the hard wood, so it ends up sounding like incoherent mumbling. 

Unfortunately for her, everyone at the table seems to know what she’s talking about, and Ino moves her hand to rub at Sakura’s shoulders. “They told you, didn’t they?”

“Mmph.”

“Hotaru-san, we’d like a bottle of sake, please. Mid-range sake would be great,” Chōji calls out to the bartender, who nods and begins rummaging around behind the bar.

Meanwhile, Sakura raises her head to glare balefully at Shikamaru. “How could you do this to me? I need to run the hospital, and you could be Hokage! Why’d it have to be me?”

Shikamaru sighs and takes a drag from his cigarette. Meanwhile, a waitress sets down a large bottle of sake along with cups for all of them. He takes the bottle and peers closely at the label. “First, Naruto asked Tsunade-sama and Kakashi-sama personally. Second of all, I’ve had too much of the Sixth trying to skip out on mission release forms. You’re not the one who has to try and drag him back all the time, chasing someone with a dampened chakra trail is so troublesome… ” He pours himself a drink, groaning when he overdoes it, sloshing some onto the table.

“Are you kidding?” Sakura scoffs. “Remember the hospital evaluation report he made me compile and ended up not reading for a week? I lost count of how many times I lost his track, the damn man. So unprofessional.” That had been an overly tedious chase throughout the village: Kakashi had destroyed quite a bit of Konoha’s roofs just to run away from the foot-high stack of papers Sakura had prepared for the meeting that afternoon. After an hour of trying to chase him, she’d thrown her hands up and just dumped the heavy stack onto his desk, only slightly mollified by the tiny crack it left.

“We have complete faith in you, Sakura-chan,” Hinata says kindly, and Sakura looks up to see her friend smiling at her, and Sakura returns the smile. “Father and I talked about it after the council meeting, and you’ve got the full support of the Hyūga.” After the war, Hinata had been reinstated as the Hyūga Clan’s heiress, and Sakura would see Hinata whenever she accompanied Hiashi to council meetings. She can’t help but be proud of her friend and how far she’s come from the timid girl she used to be. 

Moved, Sakura reaches to grasp Hinata’s hand and squeezes it gratefully. “That means a lot, Hinata-chan… Thanks.”

“You will be the most youthful Hokage of Konoha, Sakura-chan!” Lee pipes up, and clenches his fist. “Truly, you will usher in a new era of joyous wonder and blinding prosperity, yosh!” 

“You guys seem awfully sure that I won’t fuck this up,” Sakura grumps, taking a sip out of her own cup.

Ino shrugs. “Let’s face it, you fucking up would probably have less disastrous consequences, compared to Shika here,” she says, ignoring the snort from said ninja. “You’d fix it up faster than anyone else too; gods forbid your workspace be anything but efficient.”

“That’s true… but this isn’t a hospital at stake, it’s a village full of ninja!”

“Then you’ll get shit done faster than Kakashi-sensei ever did. And that can only ever be a good thing.” Ino pokes her friend, who’s looking into her cup morosely. “Cheer up, sweetheart, you can do it.”

“Hey, who knows, maybe you’ll be so damn good at this job that you’ll never have to give it to Naruto,” Kiba snickers. “It may be his dream but can you imagine—hey, ow!” Hinata looks serene as she withdraws a finger from his side. 

“Of course Naruto will be a good Hokage, it’s been his dream since we were young,” Hinata demurs. “At least he’ll have someone practical-minded and efficient to learn from. There is no one better than you, Sakura.”

“Yeah,” Tenten chimes in. “Maybe ANBU might actually get back to its glory days. We’re super understaffed, and Kakashi hasn’t signed off on any official recruitments yet.” She pauses. “I’m not actually sure if I was supposed to disclose that, to be honest.”

“It’s fine,” Sakura sighs and takes a sip of the cup that Shikamaru had thoughtfully poured out for her. “Is it bad that I’ve kinda thought about this before?”

“Me too,” Tenten and Ino chorus, and laugh. Tenten takes a swig of her beer and goes, “I dunno. It’s definitely interesting to think about how life would be like as the Hokage, you know? Saving the village from some catastrophic event all mighty-like, kicking ass and being revered by everyone in Konoha? There are worse daydreams.”

Hinata smiles and tips her head. “When I daydreamed of it, I used to think of helping out the children in the orphanages a lot. Naruto-kun came from one, and there are many children left parentless after the war. But I realized I didn’t need to be Hokage to do that.”

Sakura nods. “That’s right.” She looks at Tenten. “So these fantasies of yours, were they mostly world-saving and ass-kicking?”

“Yep,” the older kunoichi grins, and takes another sip of her beer. Her face is beginning to flush underneath her eyes. “So many Zetsu butts were kicked, you don’t even know.”

“Shino had a dream about it once,” Kiba pipes up, and mock-shudders. “I distinctly remember a tornado-shaped kikaichu swarm destroying the southeastern border walls being a part of it.”

“That is true,” Shino concedes. “It was an interesting daydream.”

The rest of the night goes on as usual: they all get drunk and happy, and sooner or later, one of them decides that it’s too late for ninja with morning patrol and early call times to be out still, and everyone troops home. Sakura bids her friends farewell, and slowly makes her way back to her apartment. It’s a cool night: the wind blows gently through the trees, and it’s almost enough to make her wish that she brought along a cardigan. 

The streets of Konoha are silent at midnight. The noise of her heeled sandals and the delicate breeze is the only thing that she hears, but that doesn’t stop her from suddenly turning around with a fist charged with chakra. It stops a bare inch before a masked nose, and Sakura groans when she sees Kakashi crinkling his eye cheerfully at her. “Good evening, Sakura-chan,” her old sensei greets, a smile hidden underneath his mask.

“Kakashi, don’t sneak up on me like that! I could’ve killed you!” Sakura exclaims, and continues her sedate pace along the street.

“Of that, I have no doubt,” Kakashi replies, and easily falls into step with Sakura. Kakashi provides a sort of warmth, radiating slightly off of him, and Sakura is comforted. He accompanies her silently, and soon the only noises are of their footsteps.

“What’re you doing up so late?” She asks after a while, glancing at him. “The Suna delegation will be arriving in the morning. Early in the morning.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” is his only reply. Sakura digests that: Kakashi did suffer from a few nightmares every now and then, even if he never said anything about them. It was obvious, sometimes, in the way that he looked at the world around him. His gaze was a little bit more sober, his posture tense around the shoulders, even through the Hokage’s cloak. Sakura understood. Kakashi wasn’t even forty and already he’d lived through two wars and countless tragic events, and that was enough to give a regular person bad dreams ten times over. 

Eventually, they end up in front of her apartment building, and Sakura turns to greet Kakashi goodnight, but when she turns, he’s gone.


End file.
